Charming! ♥

❝TWO  CHOICES❞  Karma  stood  there,  hand  pressed  against  cold  stone  wall –  gaze  fixed  on  the  other  student,  smaller  but  the  same  age  was  him.  Asshole  had  threatened  another  student  earlier,  something  Karma  hated  with  a  burning  passion -  A-Class  students  weren’t  better,  they  weren’t  smarter,  they  weren’t  HIGHER  than  anyone  else  but  they  thought  so  and  that  made  the  readhead  feel  sick  to  the  stomach.  ❝either  you  go  and  apologise  on  your  own  or  I  will  MAKE  you❞  he  knew  what  they  said  about  him,  that  he  was  violent,  terrible!  that  you  should  not  make  Karma  Akabane  angry.  A-Class  student  whimpered  and  nodded –  he  would  apologise  and  Karma  let  his  hands  vanish  in  the  pockets  of  his  pants  while  he  watched  the  other  run  away.  ❝idiot –  I’ll  have  to  beat  him  up  anyway❞

She wasn’t quite sure she liked what she’d walked in on; if nothing else, Rika was a firm pacifist and strongly believed that, if a problem could be solved through peaceful means, that was absolutely the way it ought to be done. The only thing, and it was rather a big thing, keeping her from putting in and breaking it up was her dreadful fear of confrontation. Just because she didn’t believe that conflict was a good answer, it didn’t mean she wouldn’t also avoid that same conflict whenever she could. Instead, Rika could only peer out at what was unfolding from behind the corner of the building, her fingers gripping the edge of the wall. She felt quite ridiculous about hiding from what was obviously a teenager (although she didn’t feel quite like a real adult sometimes, there was no denying that being twenty-one meant that she undeniably was one) but he was bigger than her and, really, it didn’t take much to send Rika into a panic. She always had been something of a timid girl.

✧*｡ ||   he’s been waiting at the counter for near fifteen minutes now. he’s rang the bell nearly a dozen times. eyes roll back into his head & he sighs irritably. it was hard enough trying to find a magic shop in Japan that was worth a damn, much less one close by. his visitations were becoming more & more frequent, but now he wonders if he should stock up before he leaves for his flights. a quick inhale & exhale to center himself before he raises his hands & claps, a spell cast to echo his voice throughout the store so no matter who was working & where, they would hear him just fine. ＂ service please thank you ! ＂

Rika does not hear him. No, despite the spell, she does not hear him or, rather, she only catches the tail-end of his call as she steps through the front door, the chirpy twinkle of its chime ringing out as she enters. Given the time of day, she had stepped out for lunch, having realised much too late that the lunchbox of rice and sweet omelette she had spent the morning painstakingly preparing had been left at home. In her absence, she’d left Hayato, the owner’s whimsically careless nephew, to look over the storefront but, as she’d feared, his propensity for distraction to the point of ignorance had won out over any sense of responsibility. The second she closes the door behind her and sets her eyes upon her customer, Rika feels as though her heart and stomach swap places.

“That’s who they said to look for.” He looked her over once and frowned. Poor girl, she seemed even more shaken once she realized he was looking for her services. In any other situation, his heart would have definitely went out to her- it’s never fun to be the newbie and in charge. But again, magical territory and a place where he was just about as clueless as his son was. The last thing he wanted to was to be placing his son and his trust in someone who didn’t know what they were going. Speaking of his son though, Erza giggles in his arms, staring at the different…items showcased in the shelves. “They said something about you being an expert in making…charms? They said I should get one for my son. A protection charm.”

   “ ‘exotic supplies and things like that’…? ” he reads the indicator out loud, an eyebrow raising in question at the quite unofficial sounding label. there was something eccentric about this place, but he supposes that’s true of most magic shops. it’s not like your local Wal-Mart; some witch probably built this place from the ground up, poured their heart and soul into it. weird little shops like this, full of character and personal touches, are part of what made the magic world so rich and interesting. curiosity gets to him, even though he has plenty of other things to be focusing on right now– “ so, what’s the owner of this place like? are they– ”     his questioning stops when she spills over with effort, feeling immediately guilty for not helping. “ woah– you alright– ? ” he hurries over to offer a hand, if she needs it. but in doing so, the busy storeroom catches his eye, shelves and shelves of supplies, practically endless. the vastness of it all makes him feel small, and inexperienced, like his knowledge of magic is rudimentary again, a kid fresh out of the ocean, newly discovering a world like this even exists. he’s stunned, for a few moments, before eventually regaining his bearings.     “ right… bugs. are they all dead bugs? ” he’s hoping they are, as morbid as it sounds. he doesn’t want to be the one to murder a butterfly today, even for such a cool potion. he picks up a box, carefully unlids it, and finds a collection of well-preserved beetles– huge, and…. “ gross. ” he puts it back down with a grimace, as if he didn’t know what he was getting into. another box, more finds, more unpleased expressions, rinse and repeat. this… could take awhile. the shelves were plentiful and well-stocked, and he had a lot to sort through. “ this guy keeps everything, doesn’t he. I feel like I’m in an episode of hoarders. ” of course, this level of hoarding had a practical purpose, and he was grateful to know that such a variety of ingredients existed somewhere in the world, if he needed them… but at the moment, the detailed inventory was more of a nuisance. FINALLY– he finds butterflies! they’re monarch’s, but he’s on the right track.     while he searches, his wondering aloud resumes. “ if they don’t want you digging around back here, do you think there’s dangerous stuff? or… illegal? ” he glances at her with mischievous eyes, which suggest a sense of adventure. if there was forbidden things back here, rare things… he KIND OF wanted to see them. “ don’t you want to know what the big secret is? ”

“The owner didn’t make that sign, it was her nephew.” Apparently, to begin with, the room never had a sign and the colleagues just knew which one it was but, after her nephew had moved in, he’d managed to march into the bathroom a few times too many and, in his frustration, put up a sign to mark the difference. Far from the dedicated business owner his aunt was, he’d thrown something together that only served to add to the building’s cluttered feeling; in some ways, it was the perfect fit. In all others, however, it was just proof of a brazen lack of regard for basic colour theory. She's sure, if Hayato were here now, he'd have a blast with this. If nothing else, he certainly wouldn't have his heart throbbing in his throat for fear of getting in trouble. “I think most of them are dead?” says Rika, almost as though she doesn’t trust herself. All the bugs she had encountered had been dead, at the very least, and it’s likely just as well. She wouldn’t be helping him search otherwise, she’d certainly be stuck in the doorway and pointing him in the right directions. That isn’t even factoring in the fact she could not bear to kill a living creature. She hops from row to row, searching up and down, until he announces the discovery. At last! It strikes her as a little unfortunate, perhaps a little wrong, for the customer to have gotten so close to finding the item when it is her job to help out but, given that he really isn’t supposed to be in here in the first place, she supposes workplace convention can be set aside maybe just once every now and again. And it’s made the process a lot quicker. The sooner she can get out of here and away from boxes of questionable content, the better.

Rika dashes over to meet him. “We need to stay well-stocked”, she says, standing on tip-topes to peer at the labels on higher up shelves, “People ask for all sorts of things. Usually potions but I guess we need this stuff to make them.” Potions aren’t her strong point so, really, she’s just hazarding a guess but she has borrowed from the collection for charms more than once. “It’s a little intimidating though, isn’t it? I don’t know what’s legal and what isn’t --- I guess it doesn’t matter since the police aren’t going to find us here --- but I think it’s more of a safety thing?” Despite what she says, Rika’s quite sure there are less-than-legal items in here. She’s met the supplier before and she doesn’t particularly like him; although he’s good at his job and helps the shop out quite a bit, he’s loud and brash. She does not get the feeling he is a man who does reputable work. 

he  almost  felt  embarrassed  that  Suyin  just  ran  away,  slipped  from  his  grip  while  Jungwoo  was  looking  at  other  things  for  once.  He  always  took  care  of  his  daughter,  never  would  he  let  her  run  off  on  her  own  when  he  could  prevent  it  and  this  really  was  the  first  time  he  had  to  go  and  look  for  her,  happy  that  she  didn’t  run  into  bad  people  –  but  a  seemingly  nice  young  woman.  Jungwoo  held  his  daughter  close  to  him  now,  a  small  smile  on  his  lips  at  the  words  the  stranger  spoke,  head  nodding  as  a  confirmation.  

❝I  think  she  doesn’t  really  realise  what  it  does  to  me  when  she  runs  away  like  that❞  he  said,  giving  his  daughter  a  quick  glance  while  she  already  was  staring  at  other  things  over  his  shoulder  again.  ❝I  am  sorry  if  she  caused  you  any  inconvenience…❞

“Please don’t apologise!” she gasped, hands clutched to her cheeks. Was that too firm?- Rika certainly hoped not. She didn’t exactly want to sound like she was yelling at a stranger for being polite but, as her panic subsides and she regains control of her senses, she supposes she’s just being overdramatic. Receiving an apology was, however, strangely reassuring. Up until his appearance, she’d been stuck feeling just rotten about the fact she didn’t know where to take the poor child. “It was really no trouble at all!” Rika added, a little less franticly and with a halfway dip of the head.

She did’t reveal that, had she gotten desperate to find him, she could have tried to work up a basic finding spell but she’s glad he’d shown up sooner. Since she hadn’t known what he looked like or who he was, she would have to rely on finding simply what Suyin wanted to find most of all and, knowing a young child’s mind, she have wound up being guided to whatever flashy thing caught Suyin’s eye until she finally started missing her father for real. The fact Suyin appeared too distracted to even rejoice over her father’s return only served to confirm Rika’s theory. A shuffling from inside her messenger bag caught her attention and, quite suddenly, Rika realised that a small, furry black face with big golden eyes had been peering out from under the bag’s flap the whole time. Charmy! Of course!